Tween 2 Teen Book Reviews

Pages

Wednesday, March 14, 2018

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.This week I am crazy pants excited for Leah on the Offbeat by Becky Albertalli! I loved Simon vs the Homo Sapiens Agenda, and I can't wait for the sequel. Leah is such a cool character, and I can't wait to get in the head of this bisexual badass! I also in my senior year of high school, so I'm excited to see how that is portrayed.Synopsis:
Leah Burke—girl-band drummer, master of deadpan, and Simon Spier’s best friend from the award-winning Simon vs. the Homo Sapiens Agenda—takes center stage in this novel of first love and senior-year angst.

When it comes to drumming, Leah Burke is usually on beat—but real life isn’t always so rhythmic. An anomaly in her friend group, she’s the only child of a young, single mom, and her life is decidedly less privileged. She loves to draw but is too self-conscious to show it. And even though her mom knows she’s bisexual, she hasn’t mustered the courage to tell her friends—not even her openly gay BFF, Simon.

So Leah really doesn’t know what to do when her rock-solid friend group starts to fracture in unexpected ways. With prom and college on the horizon, tensions are running high. It’s hard for Leah to strike the right note while the people she loves are fighting—especially when she realizes she might love one of them more than she ever intended.

Synopsis:
You may think you know the story. After a miserable childhood, penniless orphan Jane Eyre embarks on a new life as a governess at Thornfield Hall. There, she meets one dark, brooding Mr. Rochester. Despite their significant age gap (!) and his uneven temper (!!), they fall in love—and, Reader, she marries him. (!!!)

Or does she?

Prepare for an adventure of Gothic proportions, in which all is not as it seems, a certain gentleman is hiding more than skeletons in his closets, and one orphan Jane Eyre, aspiring author Charlotte Brontë, and supernatural investigator Alexander Blackwood are about to be drawn together on the most epic ghost hunt this side of Wuthering Heights.

First Impressions
I was really excited to ready My Plain Jane, considering the fact that I LOVED the first book, My Lady Jane. I ended up getting my ARC only days after finishing Jane Eyre, on which this is largely based. The details of the story were still fresh in my mind, so I was excited to see how My Plain Jane would completely destroy them. There are so many amazing parts of this book, and I can't wait for everyone else to read it!

Characters
First, we have our title character, Jane Eyre. Her history is very similar to that in Jane Eyre. She is a penniless orphan who attends and then teaches at Lowood School. The big difference is that she sees ghosts. Jane has a bit more sense in My Plain Jane than in Jane Eyre, but she probably wouldn't get by without the help of her best friend, the ghost of Helen Burns. I loved reading Jane's character and seeing the similarities and differences to Jane Eyre.

Our next main character is Charlotte Bronte! AKA the author of Jane Eyre! She begins the story as a student of Jane's at Lowood, which is where Charlotte attended in real life as well (or at least a school like it). She loves storytelling and ghosts, but sadly she cannot see ghosts herself. Charlotte was probably my favorite character in My Plain Jane. She was stubborn, smart, and completely unstoppable. At the same time she was young and a bit naive. She was discovering the world for the first time, and I loved being on that journey.

There are two other main characters, Bran and Alexander. Bran is a lovable goofball and any scene he was in was ten times more fun. Alexander was Bran's serious, older mentor. He is a seasoned ghost hunter, and is determined to get Jane to help his cause. The four of them quickly form some tangled relationships, and the ghosts only make it more complicated! I definitely loved them all.

World Building
My Plain Jane takes place across England in the 19th century. There is a lot of roaming the countryside, as well as many scenes in London. I really felt that the distance between places was well illustrated. Characters had to go on multi-day journeys to get from point A to point B. Typically the main characters are all in different locations, so chapters will take place in different parts of England. This means that a sense of place was very important.

Thoughts While Reading
I happened to tweet along as I read My Plain Jane, so here are some of my thoughts from as I was reading.

Authors Bio:

We're the authors of the young adult novels, MY LADY JANE, and MY PLAIN JANE, which is coming in June 2018. Our group is made up of Brodi Ashton (New York Times bestselling author of the EVERNEATH series and DIPLOMATIC IMMUNITY), Cynthia Hand (New York Times bestselling author of the UNEARTHLY series, THE LAST TIME WE SAY GOODBYE, THE AFTERLIFE OF HOLLY CHASE, and WHAT I WANT TO KNOW), and Jodi Meadows (New York Times bestselling author of the INCARNATE trilogy, the ORPHAN QUEEN duology, and the FALLEN ISLES trilogy). Between the three of us we've written nineteen novels, a bunch of novellas, a handful of short stories, and a couple of really bad poems, but we have the most fun working on our books together. We're friends. We're writers. We're fixing history by rewriting one sad story at a time.

Wednesday, March 7, 2018

"Waiting On" Wednesday is a weekly event that spotlights upcoming releases that we're eagerly anticipating.This week, I'm excited for Dread Nation by Justina Ireland. It's an alternate history, where the dead begin to rise in the middle of the Civil War. In some ways, it seems similar to the book Something Strange and Deadly (which I loved), but with a different time period and premise beyond the zombie thing. It's getting a lot of advance praise, so I'm definitely thinking it's going to be good.Synopsis:
Jane McKeene was born two days before the dead began to walk the battlefields of Gettysburg and Chancellorsville—derailing the War Between the States and changing America forever. In this new nation, safety for all depends on the work of a few, and laws like the Native and Negro Reeducation Act require certain children attend combat schools to learn to put down the dead. But there are also opportunities—and Jane is studying to become an Attendant, trained in both weaponry and etiquette to protect the well-to-do. It’s a chance for a better life for Negro girls like Jane. After all, not even being the daughter of a wealthy white Southern woman could save her from society’s expectations.

But that’s not a life Jane wants. Almost finished with her education at Miss Preston’s School of Combat in Baltimore, Jane is set on returning to her Kentucky home and doesn’t pay much mind to the politics of the eastern cities, with their talk of returning America to the glory of its days before the dead rose. But when families around Baltimore County begin to go missing, Jane is caught in the middle of a conspiracy, one that finds her in a desperate fight for her life against some powerful enemies. And the restless dead, it would seem, are the least of her problems.

Tuesday, March 6, 2018

1. "Shadowhunters: Looking better in black than the widows of our enemies since 1234." ~ Cassandra Clare, City of Bones

2. "Never trust a duck." ~ Cassandra Clare

3. “Remember, darkness does not always equate to evil. Just as light does not always bring good.” ~ P.C. and Kristin Cast4. “The good suffer, the evil flourish, and all that is mortal passes away.” ~ Cassandra Clare5. "I was alive when the Dead Sea was just a lake that was feeling a little poorly." ~ Cassandra Clare6. “Books are easily destroyed. But words will live as long as people can remember them.” ~ Tahereh Mafi7. "Libraries are full of ideas - perhaps the most dangerous and powerful of all weapons." ~ Sarah J. Maas8. “This was the boy I loved. A little bit messy. A little bit ruined. A beautiful disaster. Just like me.” ~ Michelle Hodkin9. She was the heir of ash and fire, and she would bow to no one." ~ Sarah J. Maas10. "Why be the sheep, when you can be the wolf?" ~ Robin LaFevers

Bio

Isabel is an aspiring author who enjoys reading, writing, and reviewing books. She spends most of her free time either reading the newest YA releases or writing her various YA novels she hopes will one day be published!